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Crown Tundra
And in sorrow, and in love, we become one. We are the new flesh that will usurp the old and end this Cosmic Blasphemy once and for all. I hold truth as a flame: may it burn away your falsehoods, Arceus!
-Sone Skaal of the Nalikia
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"I understand that I might be mistaken, sir, but you look very much like a man named Rose Venport."
Bede and Peony rested on Steelix, watching the leagues of snow and frost pass by as the minutes eked on. Bronze controlled his Pokemon atop the creature's head, standing a bit apart from the two others. Davgon guided Bronze, while other southern tribesfolk had gone out into the wastes to deliver a report on cult activity, a search of the same kind that had revealed the Rusted Shield's likely location earlier. Bede suspected that Bronze was listening, but reserving his own interests in the conversation.
"How perceptive," Peony grumbled. "Well, if Tercano doesn't already know it, then he'll find out eventually. I am Peony Venport, brother of the former Chairman of Macro Cosmos."
"I suppose I was expecting that," Bede said. Now he understood what Bronze meant by foresight: not seeing the future, but deducting it from a dataset. But still, unknowns remained. Why would Peony be so ostracized from his downfallen brother?
"You are wondering why I don't live in a mansion with my daughter," Peony chuckled. "Truth be told, I never wanted that life, or could have earned it. Rose...he was always the politician. He gained power, and I was overshadowed. What a delinquent I was! My existence took strange turns from there."
"Aristocrats typically only reveal the vices that make them popular," Bronze presently said, in an air that suggested two sophisticates talking about concepts beyond the common creed. "But in the case of your brother, I think that he was calculating, and calculating people know how to gain power. He learned a thing that you never could have, Peony. People always expect the worst from the rich and powerful; he used this to his advantage by doing uncommon good."
"I prefer the cynical view," Peony said. "You're trained in the lying arts of politics, Tercano, the double meanings and precise words. Language is nothing more than a weapon to men like you, and a shield to hide behind."
"Bronze!" Jake cried, gripping his pulsesword hilt, to Peonia's horror, her face becoming dreadful to see. "I've executed men for less!"
"Let him live, Albans," Bronze said, calming the man's wrath. Peonia relaxed, exhaled in relief. "His thinking interests me. Tell me more about your life, Peony. I will not judge you for the sins of your brother."
"Bah!" Peony spat. "What religion and self-interest cannot hide, a government like yours can!"
"Are you testing the limits of my tolerance?" Bronze calmly said.
"Do by arguments lack all merit?" Peony countered.
"I'll accept that," Bronze said. "Now, you have things you want to say, no?"
"Yes; more about me, now. It was only when I was in my twenties that I joined the Rorian Jihad. I was enraged at how a part of the Priesthood had ignited a conspiracy with other evil power groups against you, no, more like the Association in general. I heard of the heroism of the Rangers Kate and Kellyn for freeing Darkrai from the control of Team Dim Sun, all in your name! I knew of how the AI Chronos revolted in Almia, causing an apocalypse that was only narrowly averted. The thinking machines had to be destroyed. Or at least that was what I thought."
"What did you do during the Jihad?" Bede asked, feeling his skin grow hot despite the cold.
"Nothing much. I and another group of Rorians came upon a small town in Kanto that had not accepted the Tercano Accords. We flew down from the air. Several of our Pokemon wreaked havoc, mine among them, until the people surrendered and brought out their advanced devices from their homes. We piled them in the square and burned them. It was the best of times, the worst of times, when all hearts were moved by antitechnological furor. And we succeeded. No more thinking machines remain."
"All I see is another casualty of the mob psychosis that caused the Jihad that I advised against," Bronze said. "What more is there to you, Peony Venport?"
"Ah, the story doesn't stop there!" Peony continued. "After I got back from the Jihad, I focused on raising my family, and realizing what a terrible choice I had made in joining that movement. There was a breakthrough when I became the Gym Leader of Turffield, a Steel-type trainer! I thought to even challenge Mustard and become Champion. Empty dreams. Once Rose ascended to Chairman, I...fell into obscurity. It was a quiet life, living in southern Galar. I and my daughter have gone on many trips-"
"Ones that you dragged me along on," Peonia said.
"Adven-tours, I call them," Peony said, barreling through the interruption. "My daughter came here for her own reasons. Now, this adven-tour has turned into a true adventure. Now, the world is at stake...but it feels all so removed. Tercano, I think it might have something to do with you 'absorbing' everyone's fear. We might see Calyrex!
"Calyrex Tor-Oyarsa," Davgon interjected, as if speaking only the first part of the name was an offense.
"I absorb nothing," Bronze said. "It is you who have learned to master your fear, or perhaps you have not wholly comprehended what is at stake. Under the rule of the Unholy Trinity that we face, imagine the future as a boot stamping in the face of the collective human race, forever. Now, a second Jihad is needed. Only the fires of holy war can burn this burgeoning New Eclipse Order before it becomes strong and fat."
New Eclipse Order, Bede thought. NEO. What a terrible coincidence.
"Not scared?" Peonia murmured. "I'm scared. No, I'm terrified. It just isn't showing. But I don't know why! It's as if something else is giving me strength, something greater."
"You should keep your fear," Tess warned, speaking from some way down the Steelix. "It will remind you that you're human. Don't fall into the Bibliographer's trap. In thinking like a machine, this removes your ability for self-determination. For example, you can think of a city as a group of people living in one place. Unless I do my best to picture concepts in a human way, I think of a city as a part of a society, which is part of humanity, which is part of the Earth, which is part of the universe, which is part of the Multiverse, and onward to insanity."
"We're all scared," Bede said. "We're all really scared."
"Fear is the mind-killer," Bronze said.
Snow continued to fall as the party raced across the tundra. To the furthest south, the breakers of the Southern Sea could be seen, dark and deep, so deep that Bede believed old Nathan Allen's words. No sounding line can catch. A cluster of broken hills jutted out of the white ground beside the frozen waters: Three-Point-Pass. Smoke rose from a point somewhere within, dark against a pale and stormy sky.
"Davgon says the Split-Decision Ruins are in that pass," Raihan translated. "We would be best not to go on our Pokemon inside the pass. The cult will find us quickly. Stealth is needed to enter the inner circles...wait, he says that the young ones ought to stay out in the wastes and not venture deeper into the route. He says that they will be scarred for life, and his people are no cowards. They have youths that have beheld the damned rituals of the cult and never been the same."
Steelix halted with Flygon and Charizard by the base of the cliffs. Bede now saw that crucifixes of stone and driftwood were positioned high up in the hills, with a humanoid or Pokemon-like form suspended on each of them. Whatever this Mbelekoro-flesh-cult had been doing, it was truly terrible indeed.
Peony looked at the crucifixes with his paragoggles, and shouted in disgust. "They've got bodies up there, human and Pokemon ones! The skin's been torn off! By Arceus, how did they do that to a Pokemon?" He hit Steelix with his fist. "Most of their flesh is as hard as diamond!"
"We best tread carefully," Pearl said. "Davgon should be our guide. And I won't suffer you young ones to go into peril and death!"
"I think we should go," Henry protested. "Whatever horrors we see in the ruins will only compare to the ones we have already beheld. We have a stake in this fight as much as any of you, if not more."
"Your courage is appreciated," Bronze said. "But will not be taken into use. I forbid you from going. Only if we do not return or give some kind of signal will you venture forward and see what has befallen us. It would be cruel of me to have you walk into the belly of danger once more. If all goes well and our mission is finished, then your efforts will not have been needed. If we are killed, then you will fight in our stead. This is the way of things for the present."
"But-"
"In the name of Arceus, I ban you from following us!" Bronze roared with such a sudden outburst that Henry scrambled back in terror. "I will not have your blood on my hands, not along with millions of others! I said I could spare more, but perhaps I was dishonest. Not you. Not any more children."
"You may track our Rotom Phones," Bronze said, calming. "Then you will know where we are, even if we fall."
"Father!" Peonia cried. "We can't stay back, not now!"
"The Grand Bashar commands it," Peony said. "And I command it. Goodbye, young masters. We hope to meet again."
Henry and the other youths were left with Bronze's Steelix as the adults left, one by one, into the cliff pass. High above, a Mandibuzz cawed, and roosted on a cross.
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INTERLUDE: BLOOD AND FEAR
DOX...SARKIC-NALIKIA CULT FILES...ACCESS REQUESTED. OPEN? Y/N
Y
OPENING...
FILE RETRIEVED FROM SECURE ASSOCIATION/NETHUB TERMINAL 42982
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The Nalikian Cult of the Crown Tundra: Secure Dossier
By Tessa Woodhall, evidence compiled by Maxwellist Resistance Movement
Nalikianism: An Overveiw
Nalikianism, derived from the proto-Galarian word "nuruk," or "flesh," is a religious/philosophical system that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs, and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the "Great Djinn," its deified founder. Adherents of the Crown Tundra cult practice ritual cannibalism, human sacrifice, corporeal augmentation, thaumaturgy, dimensional manipulation, and the formation of pacts with otherworldly entities. Organic manipulation has allowed certain cultists to achieve anomalous states of being, transcending the physical limitations of baseline humans or Pokemon.
Highly secretive, the general public appears to have had little to no direct knowledge of their existence, with the exception of the southern tribesfolk, (so they are called by even themselves) who viewed them in apocalyptic terms. Though it hindered investigation and combat with the cultists, this state of clandestine nature kept the cult from normalcy-breaking activities for some time before its presumed destruction.
Disease is often viewed with reverence and Nalikian shrines have been discovered with offerings of swollen lymph nodes and tumorous growths. Certain Nalikian cults treat contagions as consecration, a means to "cull the weak" and purify the masses, and thus actively seek to ensure their spread. Most but not all Nalikians display an inherent resistance to pathogens, though it remains unknown if this is an anomalous or naturally occurring attribute, much like certain Pokemon.
Nalikian anomalies are not without risk to their users. While Nalikians are able to augment themselves and their Pokemon into physically superior forms, it has been shown that such alterations (or perhaps, the secret truths they come to learn along their path to apotheosis) have a degenerative influence on mental stability. The exact cause of this remains unexplained but it is most exemplified among known cult leaders (matashukahs), who frequently display symptoms of psychosis.
Beliefs
Apotheosis: The belief that an individual can ascend to godhood. The path to apothesis is generally considered to be the worship of the Great Djinn, and the will for power and dominance over life.
Will: Nalikians considered the will to power as the driving force for life. The individual seeks to master all things within its domain, exerting the direction of power (efficacy) while other individuals do the same, often in opposition. Will is to power as form is to matter; in turn, "desire is the measure of all things."
Sacrifice: This manifests in the form of corporal sacrifices to the Great Djinn, or ritual suicide for the aid of the community.
"To Shepard the Flesh:" It is the belief of the Nalikians that they have the right of the Great Djinn to guide and cultivate organic matter. The most skilled fleshcrafters are able to steal the genes of other lifeforms or create entirely new ones, much like a Ditto.
Organisms and Threats Posed
The creation and manipulation of living organisms through anomalous means represent the most immediate threat posed by Nalikism from its surviving adherents. Enough patterns have been discovered among these organisms that they can be divided into different "species". These organisms display no signs of fear or pain and regenerate injuries at an anomalous rate. No "Types" have been found, although instances display aversion to Fairy-type attacks. (see Anomalous Properties of the Moves Rest and Recover) Below is a partial list of such entities:
NK-BIO Type 001. Generally 1.5 to 2 meters tall and weigh approximately 250 kg. Mouths are vertical, running the length of what approximates a face; spindly fingers end in 50 to 60-cm talons. Bodies are partially protected by a white, chitinous carapace, with the flesh beneath dark red and visible at movable joints.
NK-BIO Type 002. NK-BIO Type 002 may exist as or be composed of multiple "species" and generally refers to any NK-BIO Type that lacks a stable physical form (although this can occur in many, if not all Nalikian organisms if critically injured). Existing as a gelatinous mass, such organisms are able to increase their size (with no known limit) by absorbing the biomass of those it encounters. An individual can be converted into an NK-BIO Type 003 by ritual, as encountered when the Cult of the Split-Decision Ruins caused the transfiguration and subsequent death of one member of the southern tribesmen.
NK-BIO Type 003. Known to Nalikites as a "Uraak", instances of NK-BIO Type 003 are organic, biologically living structures used as temples, such as the one discovered in the Split-Decision Ruins cult.
NK-BIO Type 004. Organisms are considered genetically human or Pokemon-kind but have undergone several significant, seemingly fatal mutations. Specimens lack all major internal organs with the exception of the lungs, heart, and brain stem. The outer epidermis lacks pigmentation and displays a condition resembling cracked porcelain, possibly related to ichthyosis. Entities appear androgynous, lacking or having somehow removed secondary sex characteristics. Their eyes are covered by a layer of skin, rendering them mostly blind but still able to react to light (universally displaying aversion to wavelengths on the visible spectrum). They do not appear to communicate via language, the only sound produced being a persistent clicking of the tongue, speculated to be a form of echolocation.
NK-BIO Type 005. Colloquially referred to as "snatchers" by personnel. Believed to have been derived from the genetic material of a Scolipede. Prehensile organic structures, dark red in color and with a tentaculoid shape. NK-BIO Type 005 are sedentary and generally used by Nalikites to guard specific locations.
Ultimately, it is feared that the Association and International Police know only a fraction of what Nalikism entails and what its followers intend. A major defeat at the Split Decision Ruins has rendered the Galarian branch of the cult defunct, but several other sects are rumored to exist, with one confirmed in Southern Roria. Based on available information, the speculated goals of Nalikian cults nevertheless represent a dominance shift, including the possibility of an end-of-the-word scenario.
Association forces are advised to react with extreme hostility against Nalikian cults, and to consider each branch or sect as a credible threat to global stability.
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CLOSE FILE? Y/N
Y
CLOSING FILE. LOGGING OUT OF SECURE ASSOCIATION/NETHUB TERMINAL 42982...
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As Bronze continued through the Three-Point-Pass, he felt the growing sense that he was walking into a graveyard.
When he first approached the bottleneck valley, he saw fires burning in great heaps, with masses of mangled bodies atop the pyres. Another might have panicked and ran back for reinforcements, but the Grand Bashar merely activated a beacon that alerted Association forces of possible danger. It would take days for the stretched-thin soldiers to arrive, but it ensured that the place would be found. Bronze then withdrew a chandler pistol, holding his Electivire's Poke Ball in the other hand.
"Davgon says that the entrance is somewhere due north," Leon said. "About a hundred-yard walk."
"Well, let's get going, then," Jake said. "If we have to split, keep contact through our Rotom Phones. This place will off us if we aren't careful."
Peony fanned out over the nearby area, trying to locate some sort of entrance. "The stench! It's everywhere, like rotting eggs! And this place should be thousands of years old...why do the tunnels and bends in the cliffs look like carven roads? It looks awfully advanced."
A wind picked up. In the wailing of the sudden gust, Bronze thought he heard a skittering sound, like the footsteps of a quick-footed Pokemon. "Do you hear that? Sounds like some kind of animal."
Before Tess could use her abilities to discern the source of the noise, a clicking sound echoed over the pass, continuously breaking off and then starting again from somewhere higher up the cliffs. Davgon yelled in terror, making a warding sign with his fingers. "Echolocation," Tess surmised, backing into a circle with the others. "I suspect that we are not alone. Poke Balls ready!"
Instead of an army of horrors descending from above, the snow erupted behind the party, throwing the burning pyres aside with a bellow. Bronze turned along with his Pokemon, and then it was all red tentacles, shouts, and otherworldly shrieks. Frozen soil went flying. Both Leon and Bronze's Charizards breathed fire, and then the tentacles shot upward and disgorged their fleshy core from the ground, rapidly being consumed by the inferno. Bronze located a milky-white eye and fired a chandler blast, sending viscera spraying everywhere.
The monster chittered, and then collapsed into a pile of burnt flesh as attacks pounded into its deep scarlet hide. Peony was still screaming, ordering his Perrserker to cut into the thing's flesh again and again, until Pearl restrained him. "Calm down! It's dead!"
"What was that thing?" Peony shouted. "That's no Pokemon! Hey, Leon! Ask Davgon if he knew that we were walking into a laboratory experiment gone wrong!"
"He says that he has heard rumors of such monsters," Leon translated, gesturing at the thing's charred corpse. "But never this one. He has only seen the Pale Ones and the fleshcrafters. As he mentioned, no Pokemon."
"Are we to turn back, or press on?" Jake said. "I say that there is more to learn. That monster was plenty large. We ought to avoid large open spaces and passages, and keep our Pokemon ready. The rumors of a flesh-shepherding cult are true, it seems."
"I've seen many strange things over my life," Moon said. "But I'll daresay there is always more to look at. We go on."
...
Ducking, Bronze scrambled up the tight passageway, cold stone rasping against his thermisuit, and entered the caves that the Split-Decision Ruins were contained within. Shrouded in darkness, he resisted the urge to cough from the strong smell of ashes in the air. He crept forward with Peony, shining lights over the cave.
The bodies of three more southern tribesmen lay on the stained ground. Bronze looked from side to side, deconstructing shadows, but no one was there, not even an eldritch horror. Davgon moved slowly, looking at Bronze's chandler pistol, as if wishing he had one to avenge his fallen friends, as honor impelled him to do so. Taking the cue, Bronze tossed him a flare gun, hoping to complement the man's Lairon.
How many tribesmen had been taken and killed over the years? The people of the deep Crown Tundra had lived in fear for a long while. The crucifixes in the hills had looked old, some with skeletons hanging off them. Bronze came to realize that even with the skills of all those assembled here, they still not might be able to defeat an entire Nalikian cult with paranormal powers. He began to feel as though he had overcommitted himself; still, the Rusted Shield had to be found.
But even if they did, where were Zacian and Zamazenta? Where was Calyrex?
Now Bronze regretted having Henry stay behind. His newly-evolved Elohim-Pokemon creature, Urshifu, might have proven to be a valuable asset. But it was too late to send a comsignal to the youths, not with the strongest fighters already present at the cavern. They likely would not make the passage through the Three-Point Pass alone.
"Close now," Davgon said, speaking in a few learned words. "Very close. Ruins upon us. Might be in them."
The clicking noise resumed from somewhere down an unlit tunnel, to the party's alarm. Creeping closer to a section of the cavern that had esoteric glyphs carved over the hard rock, Bronze saw a human form impaled on cruel spikes: a man's face, jaws agape...but the head was separated from the body that lay slumped on another spike some ways along the wall. Judging from the ragged stump of a neck, it looked as if the head had been torn from the body.
Another man lay dead inside the open mouth of a passage that led deeper underground, a gaping, bloody wound on his back. "These wounds are consistent with animal maulings," Tess said. "The marks match no Pokemon that I have ever heard of, or any move...I fear for our safety. We have walked into a slaughterhouse."
It happened then. Tess was cut off by a sudden braying of alien cries. Masses of white-skinned, scarred creatures of diverse forms surged out of every way, screaming with their own clicking language. Their eyes were covered by vestigial flesh, rendering them blind, yet still they pressed on. Claws and fangs were displayed and raked against solid stone, glinting in the inky night.
Davgon screamed. "Pale Ones!"
Bronze made his plan then and there. Those that lived in the dark would die in the light. He sent out Magnezone, and ordered it to use Flash.
Light! The sudden brilliance rendered the trainers blind, but the throng of demonic fleshbeasts shrieked in pure agony. Their skin sizzled and burnt with a horrific feoter. Scampering and retreating in droves, the monsters turned on each other in the fray, while the Pokemon of the company slashed through the pale beast's ranks with devastating attacks.
The monsters fled, with blobs of shattered-porcelain skins covering the cave walls. But now a new noise and danger had come upon the trainers. From down the tunnel where the party had come from, a surging, gelatinous mass came, expanding to fit the walls. Eyes bubbled out of a covering of amniotic fluid on the thing's pseudo-skin. Mouths formed and screamed with eerily human wails.
What fresh hell is this?
A double attack of Dragon Rush from Tess's Garchomp and Raihan's Flygon made the creature pause, but then continue down the tunnel. "Run!" Jake shouted. "We can't kill that thing!"
And then they ran. Along with the sentient blob, the Pale Ones had regrouped, and could be heard yelping and panting in their eagerness. Bronze slammed into a cave wall, and then continued forward with renewed strength. Flashes of light from flashlights dotted the rock around him. Eyeless heads were lifted behind the fleeing group, intent focused on their scent-betrayed quarry.
Behind Bronze, a stone caught Pearl's foot, and he almost fell. With new vigor, he fired chandler blasts behind him, hearing the satisfying thump of a dead Pale One being trampled by its fellows. The last one in the line, Pearl saw the amorphous lump-thing overtake the Pale Ones, incorporating some of the more sluggish specimens into its central mass.
The pungency of blood was added to the other cavern smells when Moon struck her shoulder on another rock face in the dark, cutting it open. Not stopping to tend her injury, she kept on, before falling with a cry into some pit that lay down the passage.
No time to stop now! Raihan and Leon went next, followed by Tess. They fell, likely to their deaths. Next was Jake! Then Bronze! Peony!
Pearl!
Bronze felt himself fall, turned onto his back in the air. In the half-illumination of the scattered flashlight beams, he saw the blob split into many writhing, gelatinous tendrils as it poured out of the gap by the cylindrical pit the company had fallen into, and then rush into another tunnel far above.
He hit a soft substance, damp. It was the last sensation he felt before the nerve gas hit his nostrils, and then he knew no more.